The present invention relates to a tray structure for supporting a plurality of signatures in a shingled array so that the signatures may be stored and used at a later time in the assembly of a newspaper, magazine, or the like.
Much development work in the area of automating the formation of newspapers, magazines, etc., is being undertaken. In the printing of newspapers frequently many sections of the paper are printed and stored at one time and combined in a suitable collator or stuffer with the current news which is printed currently. It has been suggested, and as disclosed in application Ser. No. 302,848, filed Nov. 1, 1972 now U.S. Pat. No. 3,840,130, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, that the signatures which are to be stored be formed in a dense shingled array on a tray and that the tray may then be supported with other trays for purposes of storage of the trays until used in the assembly of the final newspapers or magazines.
The shingled array of signatures is provided on the tray by a mechanism disclosed in application Ser. No. 358,124 filed May 7, 1973 now U.S. Pat. No. 3,842,719 and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. In general, the tray is supported on an elevator mechanism beneath a dense shingling location. A dense shingled array of signatures is formed on a pair of conveyor belts which are spaced apart at the dense shingling location. Once the array of signatures has been formed the elevator mechanism is indexed upwardly so that the tray supported thereby picks up the dense shingled array of signatures from the spaced conveyor belts. In this manner, the dense shingled array is formed on the trays.